Labour is expected to announce a social media crackdown within weeks as the prime minister, Keir Starmer, on Tuesday said he would act “very, very quickly” despite splits between campaigners and child safety experts on what the new rules should be.
New limits on social media access for children could be presented before the Makerfield byelection next month after an avalanche of responses to a public consultation have been analysed with the help of an AI system called Consult and an expert panel led by an eminent paediatrician. The consultation closes on Tuesday.
Age limits or changes to allegedly addictive design features – or a combination of both – would then come into force before the end of the year and could affect a wide range of platforms including Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, gaming sites like Roblox and messaging services like Snap.
Starmer’s promise to act fast came as his leadership rival, the former health secretary Wes Streeting, on Tuesday accused legislators of being “asleep at the wheel” on tackling social media harms. Streeting also compared the technology to smoking. The prime minister’s spokesperson denied the government has moved too slowly.
There are concerns inside government that reforms could be hit by a legal challenge if the consultation process is not properly followed. Over 42,000 parents and close to 14,000 young people were among over 81,000 respondents to the consultation which has included extensive lobbying by social media companies opposing changes to their algorithms. The technology secretary, Liz Kendall, said on Tuesday: “No one’s going to stop me from doing what I think is right.”
Kanishka Narayan, the online safety minister, is in Australia to investigate its under-16 social media ban, which has been in force for nearly six months.
Some leading child protection groups reject a similar blanket ban fearing an online safety “cliff edge”.
School leaders, represented by the National Association of Head Teachers, also came out against an outright ban for under-16s on Tuesday, warning it could create a false sense of safety and push children into less-regulated online spaces. Ministers may settle on requiring tech platforms to prove their products’ features are not damaging to children and if they cannot they will be blocked for children, industry sources said.
The pressure to act has been growing, with legislators in Greece, France, Denmark, Spain, Indonesia and Malaysia taking steps to follow Australia with social media bans for younger teenagers. Starmer on Tuesday met families of young people who were badly affected by social media – including some whose children had died.
“I have read the stories of all your family members,” he told them. “It is important that we act and we will act. I can absolutely assure you of that.”
They were due to include Ian Russell, whose 14-year-old daughter, Molly Russell, died from an act of self-harm in 2017 after suffering, a coroner found, “the negative effects of online content” while using Instagram.
Russell is among campaigners who oppose an Australia-style social media ban for under-16s believing it would form a “cliff edge” that would expose teenagers to harmful content on unreformed platforms as soon as they are old enough. The Molly Rose Foundation, which he set up in her name, has called for platforms to be required to adopt higher minimum joining ages if they offer higher-risk design features, and a new duty on tech firms to promote and protect children’s wellbeing.
The foundation wants daily screen time limits and age restrictions on features including infinite scrolling, autoplay, likes, comments, alerts and push notifications as well as personalised content recommendations.
Starmer also met Esther Ghey, who favours an under-16 ban saying “as it stands, social media represents a serious risk to under-16s”. Her daughter, Brianna, was murdered in 2023 and she believes social media addiction contributed to her daughter’s mental health issues, leading to her taking risks with her personal safety.
Ellen Roome, the mother of Jools Sweeney, 14, who believes her son died in a TikTok challenge gone wrong, told the Today programme: “They spend millions and billions of pounds on making their system. They could spend some money on actually fixing their system and say this is now a safe product, and give it back. But until it’s safe, I absolutely wholeheartedly say: take it away.”
The government is also meeting big tech companies. Meta, which runs Instagram, is urging ministers not to let new rules break the algorithm, arguing it helps point users to posts they are interested in. It is also arguing that if age restrictions are applied, they should be enforced through device operating systems rather than on an app-by-app basis.
The founder of Mumsnet, Justine Roberts, said: “The government has waited too long on this already. We need a delay on social media access for under-16s, backed by proper age assurance, strong enforcement and sanctions for platforms that fail to comply. Families are tired of being left to fight the billion-dollar might of big tech on their own while government hesitates and their kids suffer.”
